DO NOT FOLD, SPINDLE OR MUTILATE REDUX

Redux of Friday, March 19, 2010

DO NOT FOLD, SPINDLE OR MUTILATE

There has to be at least one skunk at the picnic so while all the joyous shouts go out about how far women have come and how things are getting better, I raise my virtual tail and spray some reality.

 

This month, our fore-mothers who gave so much will be lauded for a few short days and then forgotten as usual.  They are only heroes in March, the rest of the year they are human sacrifices.  We'll all join them soon on the pile of discards that our gender may become.  Men are always looking for that perfect woman and many times, not in a good way.  Some signposts -

 

In the 60's, a nasty ditty, with variations and multiple authors, was sung to thunderous applause. It wasn't funny then and it isn't funny now so I'm not quoting or citing it on purpose, it's done enough damage already.  It suggests making a woman out of parts of tables, chairs, horsehair and bottles etc.

 

The 70's brought forth the perfect woman in the Stepford Wives - I refuse to cite that one too.  If you like that sort of thing you can google it. 

 

Glimpses of the future are recounted in landmark books by women that tell of a dire future for women that differs greatly from Huxley’s, Brave New World.  These authors lived a woman’s life that Huxley did not.  Just check the reading list of Women’s Studies for title and authors.

 

Eerily prophetic is, “The architects of Gilead began their rise to power in an age of readily available pornography, prostitution, and violence against women…” from The Handmaiden’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.

 

Today from the advances science has made, it is possible that gorgeous, willing robotic, female-like slaves and science-produced, male-only babies will replace the nagging, screaming, smelly, skanks from hell that men have always privately called women.  They only tolerated them this far for getting laid, making heirs, ego stroking and working for their comfort.

 

Too strong?  Listen to your society and what it tells you in blogs, advertisements and nearly all media, of the negative worth placed on women.  It gets worse and it won't change, it never has.  That is because women will continue to complain about the treatment they get from men but still hold fast to the idea that their own men really do support them and would go to the wall to help them achieve parity.

 

Bull-ony!  The societal pressure on men may be even more fierce and intimidating than it is on women.  Have you seen the character of the "hen-pecked husband" or seen how males will reject another man brave enough to wear an apron?  Have you seen and heard how our sons are raised in sports and military and life to denigrate women?  They are called girlies, momma's boys and worse by their mentors, their coaches if they show any humanity.  "Common, ladies", yells the coach or drill sergeant to embarrass and urge them on.  Boys and men will work themselves to death to avoid being labeled that hated thing, a female.

 

Supporting this hatred for women is the myth that men have egos but women do not.  It gives men “permission” to “act out” destructively against women who talk back to them, show them up, earn more money or any number of other reasons.

 

Women have been, and are, contained and controlled by jailers who are the men they believe are siding with them in their quest for parity.  The thing is that these men just give that illusion until they are challenged, then they quickly show their true face by stepping on any woman who dares call them on their perfidy.  They'd better because the Brotherhood will not allow them to do otherwise. 

 

This system keeps the women's movement from blowing up and threatening the status quo, by letting small puffs of steam out of their boilers of discontent now and then.  Men who avow support of women have not only gained women's trust but also their protection.  Women will run roughshod over any opposition to these men - they protect their jailers.  They often give men a pass for things they excoriate women for. 

 

Women in the military are subject to rape and harassment enforced by the chain of command.  Whenever there is a male superior officer over them who uses his power to demand her “service”, she is unable to resist without the full force of tradition coming down on her.  "Resistance is futile" in most cases, and you'd better believe it.  Fortunately there are exceptions.

 

Despite all of this there are always some men who will stand by women no matter what they are threatened with.  But when push comes to shove, most do not want to lose their position of superiority passed down to them by their fathers and incorporated into their laws and their religion.  Women are patronized and paralyzed by these global weeds.  Their roots, stems and branches are like crabgrass, virtually impossible to eradicate.

 

Women's struggle for equality has come so far yet remains essentially at the starting line.  There are those that will argue that many advances have been made, but they have no answer to the basics.

 

·        Second class status of women.  The stifling patronizing of men.  Women's bodies owned by State.

 

·        Women generally will not fight for their rights in the law because lawsuits take money they do not have.

 

·        Women are still paid less than men and treated differently than men doing the same job. 

 

·        Sexism and misogyny are rampant.

 

Answers might be found in history - but women do not have any.  As the saying goes: "Marriage makes two people one and there is no doubt which one."  So it follows that the two genders [mankind] are one and there is no doubt which one.

 

Essentially, society, customs, women and men have not changed toward the status of women.  Because society and custom is male directed, only men's history comes through, while what would be women's history is not considered important and if it is written down it is usually a footnote - she is his property and she lives in his shadow and only by his permission.

 

Possible changes in the status quo are discouraged by threats and are fiercely fought.  It is only when a movement or a person breaks the barrier and substantial change is in the offing that we see and experience the massive forces at work to keep women from ever uniting with a common goal - their own personhood.

 

One very recent example was publicly demonstrated when an extremely intelligent and qualified woman sought the office of president of the United States.  For some time she overcame the many huge barriers that the patriarchal, system-driven media raised against her and her supporters and they were formidable.  Then just as it seemed she would surely win the Primary of her Party, the Party itself rose up and buried her under its own broken rules.

 

Wouldn't you think the media and much of the public would complain if a small group of people took the votes of two states from one candidate and gave them to another?  Wouldn't you think that when a political party broke its own rules and the federal laws to stop this woman that someone in high places would shout, "NO!"

 

But few think anything of the sort.  Women's present is set in the concrete of the past and there aren't enough women or men with guts or will to change this.

 

It is still mostly women who teach kindergarten and grade school.  Why do so few of them protest the absence of women in History and other textbooks?  Why is only one ineffective month given over to promote the interests of women when they are more than 50% of the population?  One would think, considering the state of the nation that their interests should be promoted 12 months of the year.

 

We as people tend to honor and relate to the blocks that form the structure of our society.  We seldom see or honor the mortar that holds the blocks together.  We go apeshit over a battlefield hero or a movie star or construction workers but women's existence and their daily heroics and horrors are mostly ignored because they are taken for granted - because most women take themselves and their situation for granted.

 

There is, and unless something drastic happens, no women's history and there shouldn't be.  We are human beings and the history of our people should include us.  The fact that it does not stands out like a festering blister on the big toe of humanity and it is easier for the system to buy a bigger shoe than treat the infection.

 

Most women have learned to fear the repercussions of doing anything that changes them and thereby changes others. Most women are content to go along to get along - making the yearly prayer march to the 30 days of March where hopefully the word, "woman", is used more than, ho, bitch, girl, chicks or any of the pejoratives that fill the streets and blogways.

 

Women's bodies, and their children, are held hostage.  We hear daily about what happens when a woman defies a man.  His social structure tells him that she is his property and he is just enforcing his rights.  For women to do anything about this on a large united scale would amount to carnage worse than the Witch Burnings of women by the Christians.

 

Men have the MONEY, police forces and the army, not to mention the government and the legal system.  Police are the worst abuse offenders - their wives and girlfriends who protest are met with the full force of his buddies if they report a cop's abuse.

 

The law says get a Restraining Order to keep the batterer/killer away legally.  How'd that work out for you - all you women carved up/shot down/choked and dead?  Where are all the metals of valor given to women who died protecting battered women in safe houses?

 

Can women make a future?  Possibly.  But not until they unite and insist that every baby girl born is given the same supportive training and respect during her formative years as every baby boy.  When the female starts out life in parity, there is great hope that she can become a force to be reckoned with.  She will no longer think of herself as not-human but as a competent member of the human race.  Gender will be an expression of one's genes, NOT one's status, intellectual capacity or ability.  Neither gender will believe itself superior to the other.  Now boys are conditioned and trained from the crib to become men; girls are conditioned and trained from the crib to become dolls.

 

Is giving girls the respect and training now given to boys, Utopia?  Not so much.  But I have seen the results when parents, despite the criticism they get, train and treat their girls and boys equally, not according to their gender, and demand that each respect her/himself and the other.  These children could change the world around them.  The girls grow up to be healthy, formidable people who don't need cloths by Whosis or Botox by the barrel to define them.

 

But they stand out as targets - as prime threats to Paternalism.  Will the present system allow them to live and procreate in any appreciable numbers?  All the years of teaching, all the training, all the religions, government, all the money, all the male bonding to enforce conformity of thought and dress that has conditioned men to take their own superiority for granted and all the years of female bondage leading to women's compliance argues against it. 

 

Men will not give up that ego trip that is always there for them - that no matter how little they succeed or how badly they do in life, they are superior to and better than more than half the population of the world.  If women had been born into that lofty environment, they wouldn't give it up either.

 

 

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Which religion is bad for women?

By LeeAnn Cox 2/15/2011



“When you look at such a large range of countries and have such robust findings that religiosity consistently leads to worse outcomes for women,” says economcis professor Stephanie Seguino, “it’s striking.” (Photo courtesy of Seguino)
"Inequality has real effects on the economy. It’s not just attitudes but attitudes that translate into unequal access to resources."

Take your pick. It might seem intuitive that the more religious a person is, the more likely he or she is to believe that men are more deserving of scarce jobs or a university education and that the primary role of women is motherhood. More remarkable, however, according to a new study published in World Development by University of Vermont economist Stephanie Seguino: no single religion stands out as being more distinctively patriarchal than other major religions. Protestants, Orthodox, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and Catholics are all likely to hold more unequal gender attitudes than the non-religious.

The research, which examined gender wellbeing in up to 76 countries, controlled for a number of factors, including income. Contrary to expectation, religiosity and gender inequality are not related to whether a country is rich or poor. The study also separated splinter groups from mainstream religions, so evangelical Christians, for example, do not impact the results for other Protestants.

Despite the persistence worldwide in wage discrimination between men and women with similar qualifications, economists have not been able to find a “smoking gun” to explain it, says Seguino, perhaps until now. “When you look at such a large range of countries and have such robust findings that religiosity consistently leads to worse outcomes for women,” she says, “ it’s striking.”

This phenomenon, which runs the gamut from individual attitudes to public policy, is not restricted to developing countries. Whatever the dominant religion, there is less spending on maternal health care, for instance, in countries that are more religious than those that are less religious. The United States, which is far more religious than places such as Sweden, is the only industrialized country without any paid maternity leave.

Even where discrimination may be overtly illegal, religion has a “stealth” effect on gender norms that affect women’s access to jobs, education, political leadership and public services. Seguino’s is not the first study to correlate religiosity with gender equality, but it goes a step beyond.

“What my study does uniquely,” she says, “is finds evidence that inequality has real effects on the economy. It’s not just attitudes but attitudes that translate into unequal access to resources.”

Policy Puzzle

The implications for developing public policy, Seguino believes, are clear. First, funneling aid and social assistance through faith-based organizations should, at a minimum, be accompanied by an investigation of the impact of their practices on women. “The question is,” says Seguino, “are the institutions we are funding actually undermining our broader goals of promoting equity?”

Second, investments in women’s education, once believed to be the core issue limiting advancement, have not worked. The influence of the culture and its institutions, embedded with gender norms and stereotypes, is too ingrained.

More helpful interventions could include affordable childcare, affirmative action, presenting positive role models of working women -- normalizing in a variety of venues the idea that women can combine work with family.

Seguino, despite an equality gap she says is the widest we’ve seen since the 1930s, sounds hopeful. The organizing principle of her research is finding the macroeconomic policies that will facilitate rising gender -- and racial -- equality with rising living standards and economic growth. She feels she’s being heard. Seguino is frequently invited to speak at the United Nations and to policy organizations worldwide.

“They are very much interested in new thinking on how to move forward,” she says, “recognizing that the policies of the last 20 years have not borne fruit. I’ve given several talks (on this religion paper) and I don’t get pushback, I think because the study doesn’t condemn any one religion.”

It’s about understanding where the fundamental issues lie and then creatively addressing them.

“Once you identify that the problem of gender inequality has religious roots,” Seguino says, “then it suggests that public policy can be used to overcome cultural rigidities. Stereotypes are dynamic, not fixed.”

http://www.uvm.edu/~sseguino/ Professor Seguino's Web page

http://www.uvm.edu/~uvmpr/?Page=news&storyID=11600 Source of this article

Military rape trial starts on Susan B. Anthony's B-Day

Hardly noticed, just like any celebration of Susan B. Anthony's birthday, is the filing of a lawsuit - finally - calling attention to the crimes against women by the military.

Gates, Rumsfeld Sued Over U.S. Military's Rape Epidemic

By Jesse Ellison
February 15, 2011 | 9:01am


A landmark lawsuit filed Tuesday against Defense Secretary Robert Gates and his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, alleges that the military's repeated failures to take action in rape cases created a culture where violence against women was tolerated, violating the plaintiffs’ Constitutional rights.

“There are three types of women in the Army,” says Rebecca Havrilla, a former sergeant and explosive-ordnance-disposal technician. “Bitch, dyke, and whore.” During the four years that Havrilla was on active duty, she was called all three—by fellow soldiers, team leaders, even unit commanders. Once, during a sexual-assault prevention training, the 28-year-old South Carolina native claims, she watched a fellow soldier—male—strip naked and dance on top of a table as the rest of the team laughed. While deployed in Afghanistan, Havrilla spent four months working under a man she alleges bit her neck, pulled her into his bed, and grabbed her butt and waist—on a daily basis. When, on the last day of her deployment, she alleges she was raped by a soldier she considered a friend, it was, she says, “the icing on the cake.”





But Havrilla calls herself lucky: the end of her military commitment was in sight. In other cases, soldiers have had to keep fighting alongside, or even under, the person who assaulted them; been ostracized by their units for reporting an attack; or, as another woman says, simply “shoved to the side.” Havrilla and 16 others are now plaintiffs in a class action suit filed Tuesday against Defense Secretary Robert Gates and his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, alleging that their failure to act amounted to a violation of the plaintiffs’ Constitutional rights. The suit, brought by Washington, D.C. Attorney Susan Burke, and filed in the Eastern Virginia federal court, charges that despite ample evidence of the problem, both Gates and Rumsfeld “ran institutions in which perpetrators were promoted; … in which Plaintiffs and other victims were openly subject to retaliation… and ordered to keep quiet.” The plaintiffs, in turn, have been “directly and seriously injured by Defendants’ actions and omissions.” “It’s shocking,” the case’s lead investigator, Keith Rohman, tells The Daily Beast. “And it’s just hard to understand why they’ve held off. Families all over America send their young men and women to serve and they do that at tremendous personal risk and danger. But this is not a risk that those families want to assume.”

http://readersupportednews.org/off-site-news-section/96-96/4963-gates-rumsfeld-sued-over-us-militarys-rape-epidemic

DO NOT FOLD, SPINDLE OR MUTILATE

"It’s more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier."

-- Feminist placard, seen in 2010 at a Feminist demonstration in Trafalgar Square

There has to be at least one skunk at the picnic so while all the joyous shouts go out about how far women have come and how things are getting better, I raise my virtual tail and spray some reality.

This month, our fore-mothers who gave so much will be lauded for a few short days and then forgotten as usual. They are only heroes in March, the rest of the year they are human sacrifices. We'll all join them soon on the pile of discards that our gender may become. Men are always looking for that perfect woman and many times, not in a good way. Some signposts -

In the 60's, a nasty ditty, with variations and multiple authors, was sung to thunderous applause. It wasn't funny then and it isn't funny now so I'm not quoting or citing it on purpose, it's done enough damage already. It suggests making a woman out of parts of tables, chairs, horsehair and bottles etc.

The 70's brought forth the perfect woman in the Stepford Wives - I refuse to cite that one too. If you like that sort of thing you can google it.

Glimpses of the future are recounted in landmark books by women that tell of a dire future for women that differs greatly from Huxley’s, Brave New World. These authors lived a woman’s life that Huxley did not. Just check the reading list of Women’s Studies for title and authors.

Eerily prophetic is, “The architects of Gilead began their rise to power in an age of readily available pornography, prostitution, and violence against women…” from The Handmaiden’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.

Today from the advances science has made, it is possible that gorgeous, willing robotic, female-like slaves and science-produced, male-only babies will replace the nagging, screaming, smelly, skanks from hell that men have always privately called women. They only tolerated them this far for getting laid, making heirs, ego stroking and working for their comfort.

Too strong? Listen to your society and what it tells you in blogs, advertisements and nearly all media, of the negative worth placed on women. It gets worse and it won't change, it never has. That is because women will continue to complain about the treatment they get from men but still hold fast to the idea that their own men really do support them and would go to the wall to help them achieve parity.

Bull-ony! The societal pressure on men may be even more fierce and intimidating than it is on women. Have you seen the character of the "hen-pecked husband" or seen how males will reject another man brave enough to wear an apron? Have you seen and heard how our sons are raised in sports and military and life to denigrate women? They are called girlies, momma's boys and worse by their mentors, their coaches if they show any humanity. "Common, ladies", yells the coach or drill sergeant to embarrass and urge them on. Boys and men will work themselves to death to avoid being labeled that hated thing, a female.

Supporting this hatred for women is the myth that men have egos but women do not. It gives men “permission” to “act out” destructively against women who talk back to them, show them up, earn more money or any number of other reasons.

Women have been, and are, contained and controlled by jailors who are the men they believe are siding with them in their quest for parity. The thing is that these men just give that illusion until they are challenged, then they quickly show their true face by stepping on any woman who dares call them on their perfidy. They'd better because the Brotherhood will not allow them to do otherwise.

This system keeps the women's movement from blowing up and threatening the status quo, by letting small puffs of steam out of their boilers of discontent now and then. Men who avow support of women have not only gained women's trust but also their protection. Women will run roughshod over any opposition to these men - they protect their jailors. They often give men a pass for things they excoriate women for.

Women in the military are subject to rape and harassment enforced by the chain of command. Whenever there is a male superior officer over them who uses his power to demand her “service”, she is unable to resist without the full force of tradition coming down on her. "Resistance is futile" in most cases, and you'd better believe it. Fortunately there are exceptions.

Despite all of this there are always some men who will stand by women no matter what they are threatened with. But when push comes to shove, most do not want to lose their position of superiority passed down to them by their fathers and incorporated into their laws and their religion. Women are patronized and paralyzed by these global weeds. Their roots, stems and branches are like crabgrass, virtually impossible to eradicate.

Women's struggle for equality has come so far yet remains essentially at the starting line. There are those that will argue that many advances have been made, but they have no answer to the basics.

· Second class status of women. The stifling patronizing of men. Women's bodies owned by State.

· Women generally will not fight for their rights in the law because lawsuits take money they do not have.

· Women are still paid less than men and treated differently than men doing the same job.

· Sexism and misogyny are rampant.

Answers might be found in history - but women do not have any. As the saying goes: "Marriage makes two people one and there is no doubt which one." So it follows that the two genders [mankind] are one and there is no doubt which one.

Essentially, society, customs, women and men have not changed toward the status of women. Because society and custom is male directed, only men's history comes through, while what would be women's history is not considered important and if it is written down it is usually a footnote - she is his property and she lives in his shadow and only by his permission.

Possible changes in the status quo are discouraged by threats and are fiercely fought. It is only when a movement or a person breaks the barrier and substantial change is in the offing that we see and experience the massive forces at work to keep women from ever uniting with a common goal - their own personhood.

One very recent example was publicly demonstrated when an extremely intelligent and qualified woman sought the office of president of the United States. For some time she overcame the many huge barriers that the patriarchal, system-driven media raised against her and her supporters and they were formidable. Then just as it seemed she would surely win the Primary of her Party, the Party itself rose up and buried her under its own broken rules.

Wouldn't you think the media and much of the public would complain if a small group of people took the votes of two states from one candidate and gave them to another? Wouldn't you think that when a political party broke its own rules and the federal laws to stop this woman that someone in high places would shout, "NO!"

But few think anything of the sort. Women's present is set in the concrete of the past and there aren't enough women or men with guts or will to change this.

It is still mostly women who teach kindergarten and grade school. Why do so few of them protest the absence of women in History and other textbooks? Why is only one ineffective month given over to promote the interests of women when they are more than 50% of the population? One would think, considering the state of the nation that their interests should be promoted 12 months of the year.

We as people tend to honor and relate to the blocks that form the structure of our society. We seldom see or honor the mortar that holds the blocks together. We go apeshit over a battlefield hero or a movie star or construction workers but women's existence and their daily heroics and horrors are mostly ignored because they are taken for granted - because most women take themselves and their situation for granted.

There is, and unless something drastic happens, no women's history and there shouldn't be. We are human beings and the history of our people should include us. The fact that it does not stands out like a festering blister on the big toe of humanity and it is easier for the system to buy a bigger shoe than treat the infection.

Most women have learned to fear the repercussions of doing anything that changes them and thereby changes others. Most women are content to go along to get along - making the yearly prayer march to the 30 days of March where hopefully the word, "woman", is used more than, ho, bitch, girl, chicks or any of the pejoratives that fill the streets and blogways.

Women's bodies, and their children, are held hostage. We hear daily about what happens when a woman defies a man. His social structure tells him that she is his property and he is just enforcing his rights. For women to do anything about this on a large united scale would amount to carnage worse than the Witch Burnings of women by the Christians.

Men have the MONEY, police forces and the army, not to mention the government and the legal system. Police are the worst abuse offenders - their wives and girlfriends who protest are met with the full force of his buddies if they report a cop's abuse.

The law says get a Restraining Order to keep the batterer/killer away legally. How'd that work out for you - all you women carved up/shot down/choked and dead? Where are all the metals of valor given to women who died protecting battered women in safe houses?

Can women make a future? Possibly. But not until they unite and insist that every baby girl born is given the same supportive training and respect during her formative years as every baby boy. When the female starts out life in parity, there is great hope that she can become a force to be reckoned with. She will no longer think of herself as not-human but as a competent member of the human race. Gender will be an expression of one's genes, NOT one's status, intellectual capacity or ability. Neither gender will believe itself superior to the other. Now boys are conditioned and trained from the crib to become men; girls are conditioned and trained from the crib to become dolls.

Is giving girls the respect and training now given to boys, Utopia? Not so much. But I have seen the results when parents, despite the criticism they get, train and treat their girls and boys equally, not according to their gender, and demand that each respect her/himself and the other. These children could change the world around them. The girls grow up to be healthy, formidable people who don't need cloths by Whosis or Botox by the barrel to define them.

But they stand out as targets - as prime threats to Paternalism. Will the present system allow them to live and procreate in any appreciable numbers? All the years of teaching, all the training, all the religions, government, all the money, all the male bonding to enforce conformity of thought and dress that has conditioned men to take their own superiority for granted and all the years of female bondage leading to women's compliance argues against it.

Men will not give up that ego trip that is always there for them - that no matter how little they succeed or how badly they do in life, they are superior to and better than more than half the population of the world. If women had been born into that lofty environment, they wouldn't give it up either.

MANSPLAINING!

The following article by Karen Healey explores a topic that is rampant in reality and in blogs but something many women try to ignore.

I would add to it only an example, which might be called, Mansplaining by Patronizing and Condescending. This occurs many times on blogs that are owned by males who profess to be feminists. Their prime motive is to control women and censor whatever she writes.

Under the gise of "just helping out these mental pigmies ie women", they will change or add to a woman's post and then post this comment: "I fixed it for you!"

Mansplaining!
Such a great word. I expect most of you are already familiar with the term, but because every time I think that someone proves me wrong, and because I think it's fantastic, I elaborate.

Mansplaining isn't just the act of explaining while male, of course; many men manage to explain things every day without in the least insulting their listeners.

Mansplaining is when a dude tells you, a woman, how to do something you already know how to do, or how you are wrong about something you are actually right about, or miscellaneous and inaccurate "facts" about something you know a hell of a lot more about than he does.

Bonus points if he is explaining how you are wrong about something being sexist!

Think about the men you know. Do any of them display that delightful mixture of privilege and ignorance that leads to condescending, inaccurate explanations, delivered with the rock-solid conviction of rightness and that slimy certainty that of course he is right, because he is the man in this conversation?

That dude is a mansplainer.

Sadly, many of these dudes are our bosses or supervisors or other authority figures to whom we cannot give much crap. But if it's someone you know in a social setting, etiquette experts agree that the appropriate thing to do is to roll your eyes and say, "Oh, please, mansplain to me some more."

You are doing him a favour. Friends don't let friends foster mansplaining.
http://karenhealey.livejournal.com/781085.html

Whatever the form Mansplaining comes in there will usually be women who enable Mansplainers, one or more women protectors of the Mansplainer who will protect, defend and 'splain why he is basically an OK dude.

These enablers will rush in to translate ie tell you what he really means or to protect him on the basis of how most of the time he helps and is good to women.

Blog comments by many men report that they are hurt for being singled out like this -that women do it too and the term should be gender neutral - like douche bag. Yes, some women do but not from the position of privilege and superiority accorded to men in our society.

Long before the terms came into being [Google goes back no further than the '80's] - Mansplainin was going on. For a brief definition and recent history -
http://wiki.fandomwank.com/index.php/Mansplain

Here is an early example of near universal Mansplaining:-

Women who are obviously battered and broken asking help from God's representative on Earth as they ask the male preacher, confessor, minister to make her husband stop the constant beatings resulting in broken jaw, concussion and abdominal and breast injuries - In addition they may tell of other injuries from the near constant rape by him or by his buddies.

Mansplaining: "It is your duty to do as your husband demands. If he is hurting you then it must be that you are shirking your duties. You must submit to your husband in all things - it is God's will."

Every woman has other examples. The past is the present and appears to also be the future where Mansplainin is concerned.

It is interesting to read the comments on blogs from some males as they Mansplain why the term is incorrect - actually it is hilarious.

The term, Mansplain, is correct and should stand. Alternative suggestions are specious or sexists, such as douche bag, which has become a pejorative against both genders but mostly denigrates women.

Men should "Man up!" or shut up with the Mansplaining - their enablers should shut up and let them suffer the consequences of their own actions.

First egg

November 2, 2009 at 9:30 EST

Winkum laid first egg for the Black Stars. For comparison, the one on the left is a store-bought large egg. The one on the right is from pullet Winkum - not bad for a beginner, Wot?

O Canada!

Wednesday, October 07, 2009
World First: Canadian Scientists Decode Breast Cancer Tumour's DNA

Here's Canada causing problems for the USA again. Since cancer and all other illnesses are big business in the USA, a potential cure could cause some serious problems, or loss of profit here in the land of the free market gone wild. If we don't want Canada's cheap drugs and universal health care system, we sure as hell don't want anything that might lead to a cure for cancer. (Full disclosure, I lived in Canada for 13 years and enjoyed universal health care. Canadian health care was far superior to the care my family and I have received in the USA.)

TORONTO - In a world first, Canadian scientists have decoded all three billion letters in the DNA sequence of a metastatic breast cancer tumour and identified the mutations that caused the original tumour to spread.

The landmark study by researchers at the B.C. Cancer Agency is a major step towards unravelling the mysteries of how cancer begins and what makes it move to other parts of the body.


There are more Canadians who believe that Elvis lives than there are Canadians who want the U.S. health-care system.

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